This is How We Farm: Hawaii’s Role in Producing Sustainable and Smart “Short Corn”

Food growers face more challenges today than ever before. Record breaking heat waves, devastating wildfires, prolonged droughts, intense windstorms and historic flooding – extreme weather events have become more intense and more frequent. At Bayer, we are always working on finding the next breakthrough in sustainable agricultural innovation that can help us tackle climate change – and Bayer Hawaii plays a key role in bringing those new ideas to life.

 

One of these such innovations, Short Stature Corn, is an incredibly simple concept. These hybrid plants grow shorter than conventional corn, and that feature alone provides a number of benefits for battling extreme weather. By shortening its stalks, corn becomes more stable, is easier to access and creates an environment where crop nutrients can be applied more precisely.

short corn
Short corn growing in Bayer Hawaii greenhouse

Bayer developed Short Stature Corn and leveraged its power to develop a Smart Corn System with three key benefits to growers, ensuring they have access to not just the seed itself, but the resources to optimize their results while farming it.

 

The first benefit is protection. Because Short Stature Corn grows lower to the ground, it is sturdier and less likely to break in high winds than traditional corn – in some trials, Short Stature Corn has withstood wind gusts in excess of 50 mph!

 

Next, the Smart Corn System enables crop access season-long, allowing for the precise application of crop protection and other inputs with standard ground equipment. And finally, this system and the foundational stability of Short Stature Corn provides growers with more flexibility, peace of mind and potential for reduced overall business risk.

 

As part of the Smart Corn System, Bayer provides digitally optimized recommendations to help growers drive precision and efficiency to maximize ROI.

 

Ultimately, the Smart Corn System helps farmers produce more predictable yields using fewer resources making it a win for growers, consumers, and the earth!

As a leading innovator in ag, Bayer is constantly creating new products and seed hybrids that benefit growers and help us all battle the effects of climate change. Bayer Hawaii and our island farms play an integral role in that innovation pipeline and are deeply embedded in the processes for creating new products at all stages of development.

 

“It’s nice to move farming towards more sustainable practices that will reduce growers’ risk,” explained Jason Knoche, Production Research Scientist at Bayer Hawaii. “Personally, I bristle at waste. This technology helps growers in many ways by allowing growers to apply fertilizer more precisely throughout the growing season, but also potentially reducing claims on crop insurance due to weather-related events like windstorms.” 
 

You can read more about the science behind Short Stature Corn and how it makes a difference here.